The Promise
by Iceworth
Summary: AU. What if the illusion during Coda had been real, and Kathryn Janeway really had died? Janeway's spirit watches over Voyager during its journey, losing track of time.
1. Chapter 1

_(A/N: Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Paramount. Also, this is just a story, not a religious/spiritual statement or whatever, so shush and enjoy! This'll be in two parts.)_

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They were going home. She'd made a promise, and even dead, she intended on keeping her promises.

It amazed her how tranquil the afterlife was. She expected herself to be bored sick, but it was the tranquillity that soothed the boredom, kept her biding her time. On some days, she paced the empty hallways of Voyager, her comrades rendered invisible by the spiritual plane. On others, she patrolled while incorporeal on the physical. Most of the time, she walked without them. On this plane, the colours were greyer. Far duller. It was easier, on the spiritual plane - going on the brighter physical took energy she didn't know she needed, or she'd slip lower. She vibrated with it, she could feel it, and the quicker she vibrated, the more she could see or hear her crew. It was her life force, and she'd always felt it while alive, but had never noticed it. It was like the heartbeat of the afterlife.

The Light was waiting for her to cross over, but she always ignored it.

The first weeks had been horrible. She'd watched the crew mourn. Watched some lose hope. Watched Chakotay spend hours in the dark mess hall, watching the stars rush by outside. She felt her human aspects more strongly, then, but as time went by, she became a spirit instead of human. Started patrolling instead of watching. Started... drifting.

Days passed, rarely changing. Sometimes something exploded, and Voyager bucked and wheeled through the vacuum of space. Often the stars that whipped by at light speed slowed. Sometimes the anxiety of the crew was so great she could _feel_ it even from the lower planes. Sometimes felt such joy from them that she could visit them again and not be drained of energy.

She learned most of this on her own, stretched and tested her limits. Her father had appeared to her, to guide her to the Other Side, but she hadn't gone, though often she saw the ever-patient Light from the corner of her metaphysical eye. She'd made a promise to her crew, she _wouldn't_ go. For a while, he stayed, watched and tutored, letting her make and fix her mistakes. She learned that ghosts were not omnipotent – they only had so much energy to expend, or they sank into the lower planes where the negative entities dwelt. She learned quickly that the best way to save energy while on the human plane was to go into the form of an orb, for a bizarre reason none of them knew.

Of course, in the early days, she'd been in despair, trying desperately to comfort her shattered crew - but messing with the holodeck controls had been a mistake. She'd expended so much energy that she couldn't return to the human plane, even as an orb, for _weeks_. Not until morale of the crew inexplicably boosted, and they gave out positive energy like rays of light. That day, she watched a party on the holodeck, smiled, and walked among them once again.

When they were happy, she could be with them.

She knew she could go to Earth in this form, faster than even Transwarp. _That_ didn't take much energy. Moving on a plane never did. It was being _in_ the right plane and appearing to other people that took energy. Trying to appear to Kes had taken far more effort than even the holodeck had...

Energy. How she hated how little she had! But as Kathryn Janewy was wont to do, she prodded, pushed and tested her limits, used as much as she could afford to experiment and learn so she could find a new way. She learned a lot - learned that moving things, even causing the smallest of breezes, cost more energy than she could afford to use. That the most sensitive of those on board Voyager could see her out of the corner of their eyes _only if they believed_, but never directly.

But one day, Kes finally saw her. While the battle with the Borg and what Kathryn would later learn was species 8472 raged on, Kes's powers had multiplied. She'd looked directly at Kathryn. Saw her, as Chakotay struggled to rush her to an escape pod before she destroyed the beloved ship. Before the Ocampan could tell him. But Kes had saved Voyager - propelled it far from 8472 and borg space.

There had been many casualties from that battle.

Kathryn had greeted them all. Shown them all to the Light, as her father had before her. Told them all the same thing, _I will see you all home before I cross over – whether that home becomes the Other Side or Earth._ She even met a borg, once, the spirit of a troubled ex-human whose name had been Annika Hansen. Kathryn read her energy - she'd been a borg ever since she was a child... _poor thing_. Helping her cross over had been most difficult. Sometimes Annika felt into such confusion and despair that she dropped to a plane below even the physical one. But in the end, she'd made it.

Sometimes older crew members – from when the Caretaker had drawn them into the Delta Quadrant – came over to see how Kathryn was doing. Talked to her. But after a long while, when she'd given up on showing the living she was there, she'd preferred to walk alone.

Days and nights blended together, weeks and months and years. On this plane, there was no way to tell the passage of time, except for the replacing of gel packs, the destruction and repair of consoles, and the programs on the holodeck. Sometimes she could hear the dim, far-off murmurs of her crew at work, their footfalls creating a tiny rhythm that soothed her. Sometimes she saw swimming images that blended together in swirls of movement. Sometimes she saw the occasional head turn in her direction, staring through her, as if they'd felt her there.

After a while, she suddenly felt the urge to move on from her unremarkable existance. Nothing triggered it – just one day, after the tide of time became so fluid she wouldn't have been able to tell how much time passed if she'd even cared, she just decided to try again. She went to the holodeck, prodded at unresponsive controls. Snerked when she walked in on Torres and Paris taking advantage of a stolen moment in the turbolift. Drifted near Tuvok while he meditated, shared in his serenity. Went with Chakotay on spirit quests. He always saw her, but only glimpse. Kathryn didn't have the energy to show up _and_ talk at the same time, and didn't want to disappoint him too much.

So, instead, she settled for dropping in on his dreams. There, his life-force vibrated even faster than her own, and she was able to meet his level easily. Though she had to go _up_ to meet the physical world, the thrum of it was far slower than any spirit's, and cost energy, after all. She could skip that plane, but dwelling on it was harder.

In his dreams, she smiled and danced and laughed with him again, and he woke refreshed and with a smile. Once she'd even kissed him, in a dream about New Earth. She just played along with the dream, barely thinking. It had been a long time since her brain had felt _alive_, since she'd done much more than go with the flow and watch over Voyager, and so it never struck her to tell him about any more.

Until, in one dream, they sailed on a lake and he looked up and saw the white orb of the full moon.

"The full moon," he said. "I'm dreaming."

Kathryn blinked at him. "Oh," she said. "That's right, I forgot."

He looked at her, then. "It's been so long. You…"

"Died," said Kathryn. She then smiled, and she felt her own vibration increase, and the dream became bright and happy as the moon faded and the sky became the brightest blue. "It's okay, Chakotay. I'm okay."

"You've been gone for years," he murmured. "Yet I still dream of you, all the time."

"You're dreaming now," she said. "But I'm really here."

"You're just my subconscious."

"Do you really believe that?"

He looked at her, for a long moment. "It doesn't feel like other dreams," he said.

"I've been in a lot of your other dreams," said Kathryn. "The real me. Sometimes your mind _does_ conjure me. But in this one, I'm so much happier, so you can feel it too. Sometimes, I forget we're dreaming too."

He asked questions, and she answered. The dream seemed to last for eternity as she told him of how she'd tried to communicate with him, how her father, Edward Janeway, had guided her. How Vorik had once sworn he'd seen her in the corner of his eye, but had not told anyone because it was "illogical". How B'Elanna was pregnant with Paris's child, but didn't know it yet. She had felt the baby's energy for precisely one week, three days and fourteen hours.

Of course, as all mortals do, Chakotay – Captain Chakotay, she'd learned, though he would always be Commander in her heart – woke up. High from the vibration of the dream, Kathryn found she could keep in his plane with ease, watching from just above the foot of his bed in the form of an orb as his eyes blinked awake.

He groaned, "Computer, time."

"Two hundred hours and eleven minutes," said the Computer's voice. Kathryn thrummed to hear it. The light grew brighter. As usual, she ignored it.

Chakotay swung his legs out of bed, and she felt the sluggish soup of his thoughts before they suddenly sharpened – he'd realised he dreamed about her. And to her shock, she saw his eyes moisten.

He really missed her, then.

He sucked in his breath, and moved to change clothes. Though Kathryn had mistakenly glimpsed her crew in various stages of undress several times, she was in alive-mode enough to vanish into the empty hallway for a few minutes to give him privacy. Moments later, he emerged.

She followed him down the hallway, into the turbo lift. Of course, no longer bound by the laws of physics, she had to move herself down with it. (She'd once asked her father why her spirit didn't move at warp nine, but he told her that since she was bound to the ship, when she stood still, she _really_ was still, in some way her ectoplasmic brain couldn't get around.) He passed through the bridge, deserted except for Kim working a late shift and the co-pilot, and into the ready room, where he booted up the computer.

He intended to verify some information, his thoughts told her. She didn't dip herself in them – merely observed them as one observes a river going under a bridge. She was satisfied by how calm they were, in contrast to how hers had been while her heart had beaten. She wished she could swim in them, but then, as if he'd heard her, he thought dimly how spirits could sometimes read minds. It was so quiet, but he felt slightly – so, so slightly – disturbed by this. She "smiled", and let him be, opting to watch over his shoulder as he accessed her file.

His eyes brimmed with tears when he was confronted with her picture again, though he made himself tilt his head up and look her picture in the eye. He clicked around…

"Edward Janeway," he murmured.

_So it wasn't just a dream_, his thoughts said. His thoughts ventured places – the New Earth dream, which had a very distant part of his mind twitching in embarrassment at the thought that she might be knowing what he thought – the other dreams he'd had with her in them. She watched as he mentally filtered through each dream he'd ever had of her – to her chagrin, he'd actually forgotten a lot of them – and correctly identified which had _really_ had her, and which hadn't.

Then, to her dismay, his thoughts changed tack. _Perhaps she told me her father's name and I just subconsciously remembered._

_No!_ she thought, and watched as he turned off the computer, and the lights, and returned to his bed.

But he didn't hear her.

--

Her disappointment banished her to the spiritual plane for what might have been a few weeks, or maybe longer, or shorter. She felt dimly aware of Chakotay's dreams, at times, in the muddle of the many other dreams that occupied the ship, and watched. He grew lucid in several a night, but however much he looked, he couldn't find her, and neither did she feel like relieving him. Sometimes his subconscious created a Kathryn Janeway for him – but he could always tell that Janeway was a fake.

Much to her amusement, sometimes this Janeway seduced him, which would always end with him flailing out of frustration in his bed and waking up. One night, he woke up in despair. Touched his fingers to his cheeks and found them wet. _Why doesn't she contact me again?_

She felt her humanity brush her, then. He was crying, and she could relieve it. He'd been suffering – but it hadn't occurred to her to talk to him again. She'd, quite honestly, seen no _need_ to, but her humanity reminded her of the early days of her death. She remembered watching them exist without her, feeling agony that she couldn't contact them. She remembered watching Chakotay suffer. Feeling the loneliness of the spiritual plane, even when her father was there...

So she tried again.

To her shock, Chakotay's subconscious expectations blocked her from his dreams, however much he yearned for her. The shock brought the sensation of tears to her own consciousness, though she had long abandoned her Janeway form. The days of wandering the corridors, she realised, had long passed, and she'd merely _existed_ since then. She'd been dissolving...

She tried and tried again and again to go through his dreams, and she watched him grow worse. Even when B'Elanna's pregnancy was confirmed, Chakotay did not improve – he couldn't _remember_ what Kathryn had told him. Distressed, Kathryn could do nothing more but follow him on his plane as an orb, gripping his plane as much as she could bear to, stretching herself…

What happened if her energy ran out? Where did her energy _come_ from, anyway?

She could see him now from behind, as he wandered to the turbolift on the way to the bridge. Vorik strode past him – and stared at her. Kathryn stopped, confused.

And so did Chakotay. "Ensign? What is it?"

Vorik blinked at her – then that familiar look came onto his face. The one that went straight through her. "Nothing," he said. "I just thought I saw something, Captain, but it is not possible."

Chakotay looked at him for a long moment. "Are you sure?"

Vorik's sharp eyebrows slanted into a frown.

_Tell him!_ begged Kathryn. And, ever so slightly, she could feel her words brush his thoughts. And he thought, _perhaps I should mention it._

"I thought I saw a ball of light," said Vorik. _Perhaps not. Nonetheless, it's too late. It is not right to torment him, but..._ "with the deceased captain's face on it, but I was mistaken. Perhaps I should report to the Doctor."

"I think you should," Chakotay inclined his head. "Better to be safe, after all."

The Vulcan nodded, and turned around and breezed in the direction Chakotay was headed. But Chakotay stood still for a long moment.

_Perhaps she's really…? No, cannot be possible… she's dead, if ghosts were real, she'd have contacted us by now…_

Only then did she realise that her death had almost shattered his faith. Vision quests had meant little to him since. Chakotay started walking again, and Janeway dipped into her inner eight year old and said, _I __have__ contacted you, __stupid__._

_He cannot hear you_, said her father's voice. She felt his presence grow from nothingness and drift nearby. She remained for a moment, letting Chakotay go on ahead, and vanished back to her plane.

She decided to don her "Janeway" form again, and stood in the empty hallway. She felt her father's presence condense into his form. _Why can't he hear me? _she said. _Vorik could see me!_

_Vorik is particularly sensitive and was caught off guard_. Her father didn't "speak" – he merely thought at her, and her mind translated them into words. A living, human habit, developed from the human brain's inability to interpret spiritual information directly. _Chakotay cannot hear you because his despair is too great. If he were open, and in tune – a state most humans can only achieve in sleep – he would have heard you._

She felt unsettled, and rose back to the human plane, reforming as an orb. She didn't need to say goodbye to her father – no such things existed in the spirit world, though the new ones that had passed over still clung to the tradition of the living. She took a shortcut through the floor to the bridge, where she found Chakotay coming out of the turbolift.

And saw an ensign with a holocamera, and all of the senior staff.

"What's going on?" he growled.

"Why, Captain!" said Neelix. "It's a photograph for this year! Didn't you remember? Our seventh year in the Delta Quadrant!"

_Seventh year?!_ Janeway felt shocked. Had it been so long since she died? Since the shuttle crash had claimed her life?

_So many experiences lost..._ for the first time in a long time, she felt saddened. She'd missed so much... _I want to live again_.

Chakotay seemed to grit his teeth a moment – a sight which made Janeway droop with despair so much she almost fell out of the plane – then answered levelly, "No, I had forgotten. Alright, let's get to it."

Commander Tuvok sat in Chakotay's chair, a sight which made Kathryn's heart ache – so long ago, she had seen her Chakotay sit there instead, the chair in which _he_ belonged – and Chakotay in hers.

_Though,_ she thought,_ I suppose it's his now._

The rest of the senior staff, the doctor included, assembled behind them.

As the ensign fiddled with the holocamera, Janeway decided to join in. For old time's sake. They wouldn't see her, but _what the hey_. She thought only for an instant before she stood next to Tuvok, part of her going through the railing behind them, and lifted two fingers behind his head, grinning impishly at the camera as the ensign held it up and pressed the button. She'd always secretly wanted to play a prank on Tuvok, but left it to Harry and Tom before now.

She felt her mood rise. _Old time's sake_, she thought, humanity creeping back to her. She could feel joy again. Feel like she was _part_ of the bridge again, and not a nomad of the corridors. The ensign frowned, pulling the holocamera from his eye and staring at the viewscreen in shock.

"Uh, Engineer Torres," he said. "I think there's a malfunction here, an image seems to be superimposed – "

"Let me see," B'Elanna moved from her place and beside the ensign. "What seems to be the – "

Her jaw dropped.

"B'Elanna?" said Chakotay.

"C-Captain," she looked up. She burst into a grin. "You _have_ to see this!"

Chakotay stood up and strode towards them, taking the holocamera –

Then he looked up, and stared straight at Kathryn. She blinked.

"Oh my _God_," said B'Elanna. She followed his gaze. "She's – I suppose it _could_ be a previous picture superimposed with this one, like Ensign Morris said, but it's been _years_ – "

By then, Neelix was beside them and looking at the picture. Out of curiosity, Kathryn followed. In it, she could see a mist behind Tuvok, but in that mist, her own, unmistakable form, the two fingers – and that impish grin. She could feel the turmoil that was Chakotay's shock, B'Elanna's contrasting blank mind, and Neelix's excitement. "It must be the captain!" said Neelix. "When I researched Earth when I first came to Voyager, I found some twenty-second century photographs of what were believed to be spirits, and they appeared in a very similar way to the Captain, though some were in the forms of _orbs_."

"What… is she doing?" only Tuvok seemed calm, though Kathryn could detect a faint whiff of confusion.

"She's giving you rabbit ears!" said B'Elanna, before she burst into laughter. Kathryn could feel a dam breaking, and a flood of relief and joy, which strengthened Kathryn's hold on the physical universe.

Only Chakotay was conflicted now, staring at Tuvok's now-empty seat. "She's really here after all…" he murmured.

She skimmed his thoughts – he wanted, yearned, _needed_ her to show herself. Only then did it hit her how much he truly loved her – and not just the way a first officer should love his captain, or a friend should love his friend. It made her form smile, and she desperately reached out towards the lights that shone above…

She could feel her father's warning presence. She struggled. She _had_ to give them a sign… but nothing happened. Nothing budged. Her energy drained away, but she gave a last, strained burst -

And the lights flickered. And the mystified joy her crew felt was enough to make up for the energy she'd lost.


	2. Chapter 2

Kathryn finally managed to enter Chakotay's dreams again, to her relief. They talked like the friends they'd been before, and Kathryn was so happy she snuggled into him, much to his startlement.

She could now see why Q thought they were lowly mortals. Chakotay's reservations seemed pointless. "What are you _doing_, Kathryn?" he said.

"Showing you I love you."

"Kathryn, this is just a dream – "

"Doesn't matter," she told him. Then she kissed him.

"Kathryn – "

"Shhh. I didn't get to do this when I was alive because I was foolish. I'm not wasting this opportunity now – "

"Kathryn, I can't take advantage of you – "

"I'm _dead_, not _drunk_."

He didn't complain after that, though when he woke up, he felt slightly disturbed – no matter how light he otherwise felt – that he'd just been intimate with a _ghost_. It didn't feel right.

_It's okay_, she told him. _We won't do it again. I just wanted to know how it felt…_

But he said nothing. Rubbed his eyes, instead…

Kathryn reached out again. Stressed. Tugged on something – felt a glitch. Something sticking out. She pulled, then…

Chakotay looked up as a liquid cylinder formed in the replicator, then splattered to the ground. He blinked, standing up. He walked over.

_It's okay_, she said. _We won't do it again. I just wanted to know how it felt…_

He looked up.

_Did you hear me?_ She said.

_Maybe I'm just imagining it…_ he thought. She could sense his lower thoughts dweling on what she had just said – he thought he just made her voice up.

But then he wiped his finger on the brown liquid in the replicator and tasted it.

"Coffee," he said. A small smile appeared on his face. "Black."

Now, there was no doubt in his mind.

--

She was surprised she had been able to tweak the replicator – and then realised that she had little trouble staying on this plane, now. She could feel her humanity again. She walked with the crew (startling Tal Celes, who inexplicably felt a cold breeze through her) sat on her chair in the bridge (making Chakotay demand to turn environmental controls up, though everyone else said the room was actually quite warm), stared at the viewscreen when it came up. She spend most of the time in the holodeck or in "her" quarters, drifting around.

One day, she felt a loss. She knew she was bound to the ship, and when a crewmember died, she could feel them long before she saw their spirit – but nobody had died. She'd… lost something.

She found out that afternoon that the Talaxian was gone. _Her beloved Neelix_. Left with some other Talaxians. She felt the blow to her heart. She'd really hoped he would stay with her, with her ship…

She almost _was_ her ship, now.

She grew strength again. Had fun flickering the lights on the bridge whenever Chakotay walked on – much to the Crew's amusement. It got to a point where Tuvok would greet _her_ before Chakotay, and when he did that, she flickered the lights again. It came easily with practice. The other ghosts who came by occasionally thought she was being totally insane and pointless, but she liked doing it.

"Like the captain said," said Chakotay, smiling, after the second flicker. "At ease."

Morale boosted by her presence. Some were sceptical that ghosts existed – whenever she was around Crewman Marks, for instance, she could sense what felt like a dampening field around him. She tried to get in his dreams to show him that she _really_ was there, but she _couldn't_, because he didn't believe.

_Why is this?_ She asked.

She was not surprised when her father answered. Her humanity snickered at his tendency to barge in like that. _The afterlife is what you believe it is_, he said. _If you do not believe in spirits, you do not become one._

_I didn't._

_You must have believed even a little. He does not._

_I see._

Much to Kathryn's frustration, she couldn't even flicker his lights or touch a thing in his room.

--

The mess hall was different. Kathryn had tried for a while to create a hologram of herself, but it was as if her spiritual hands were too large and clumsy to get the intricacies of doing such a thing, and once she grew bored, she moved to the mess hall. Much to the indignation of the new cook, and the delight of Naomi Wildman, Kathryn enjoyed moving pots and pans around when nobody was looking, and sometimes even turning the stove on. She stopped after Naomi once burnt herself on it, but kept up the moving of pans.

She missed her Talaxian.

Then, one day, things changed. An old woman that looked like her mother appeared on the screen, and Kathryn blinked and tilted her head in her human form. Chakotay looked stunned.

It took a moment for Kathryn to grasp what was being said. Something about a pulse, and Klingon ships – and a huge rift in space closed. Voyager beamed the woman aboard. Explained who she was – Admiral Kathryn Janeway, from the future, to bring Voyager home.

"Now where is the captain?" she said.

"I am the captain," Chakotay tilted his chin up.

"I demand to know what is going on."

Kathryn didn't like her future self. Not at all. She bristled, and the lights flickered.

Chakotay smirked a little. _Your future self doesn't give your present one any credit_, he thought at her.

The lights flickered again. Chakotay gestured to them. "There she is."

"What is the _meaning_ of this?" said the Admiral, icily.

"You're in the wrong timeline," said Chakotay. Kathryn could feel him struggle a little to talk, though it had been _years_... "In ours, you're dead."

--

The Admiral didn't leave, unfortunately, and sat at the head of the table in the briefing room like she still owned the place. "No matter which timeline it is, I'm creating a new, separate timeline regardless," she said. "Otherwise I wouldn't exist. Anyway, what happened to me?"

And Chakotay told her.

The Admiral frowned. "But in _my_ timeline there was an alien creating an illusion that I was dead!" she said. "It showed on the tricorder - the Doctor was down there and helped me fight it, along with Chakotay."

"There was no alien entity present in the captain," said the Doctor. He rose his eyebrows and sat back in his chair. It was difficult to know what the Doctor was thinking, as he didn't have thoughts in the way an organic being did, but from the look on his face it was clear he didn't like the Admiral much either. "_I _should know, I'm a hologram."

The Admiral frowned. Then she looked up. Kathryn felt a lingering sadness as she cast her eyes around the room... "Where's Seven?"

Chakotay blinked at her. "Who?"

"Seven of Nine. Annika Hansen."

"Seven of Nine?" said Chakotay. He frowned.

"That borg from a few years ago?" said Harry Kim. When everyone except the Admiral continude to frown, he went on. "That time one of the crewmen tried to make a pact with the borg, remember?"

"Of course," said the Admiral. "If I was dead by the time we met her, then she would never have regained her humanity…" She steepled her finger, looking pained, but covered it quickly. "Strange, that you ran into her, however. If I didn't make that pact with the borg, we wouldn't have ever met her..."

"Pact with the _borg_?" said Harry Kim, then went quiet with a deathly look from Tuvok.

To Kathryn's surprise, she felt the Admiral's pain. She suddenly saw that the Admiral had seen this _Seven_ as a daughter…

"I was so hoping to see her again," murmured the Admiral.

"The Prime Directive requires you do not tell us of the future," said Chakotay.

"My future would have never happened to you anyway, if your captain's dead," said the Admiral. "And good riddance, I say – "

Suddenly, the temperature dipped.

"I think you offended her," said Tuvok, as a cold breeze went through the room.

_Be careful,_ Edward's voice was so far away as Kathryn bristled. _Don't submit to anger too much, or you'll go down a plane.  
_

But Kathryn was already struggling to bring herself back up. The room warmed again, the breeze died.

"Big whoop," said the Admiral. "I'm here to – ow!"

The crew blinked at her.

"I thought something pinched me," said the Admiral.

"Correct," said Tuvok. "I think you have offended her _greatly_."

Only Kathryn could detect the faint whiff of amusement in Tuvok.

--

She watched, as plans and arrangements were made. As Admiral Janeway went around wreaking havoc by telling people that there would be casualties. Pushing down the morale. If Kathryn didn't have more strength than usual, she would have sunk back to her old plane. Instead, she took to following the Admiral around – plainly she couldn't be trusted. Whenever she sensed the Admiral about to do some more damage, she gave her another pinch or a cold breeze.

"Ghosts," the Admiral finally said as she retired to her borrowed room one night. "Do _not_ exist."

But Kathryn knew she was lying to both of them – after all, if the Admiral were a true sceptic, Kathryn wouldn't be able to harass her. She answered by flickering the lights again – something which made the Admiral give a low hiss.

"_Fine_," she said. "You exist. Just leave me _alone_."

Kathryn would have stopped her from sleeping, but decided that an even more irritable Admiral was the last thing Chakotay needed. Instead, she skimmed over the Admiral's dreams that night. She felt saddened, upon learning of Tuvok's senility – she'd already known of his disease a few days now – and Chakotay's death. How he'd grown to love this "Seven" and married her, and been widowed far before he should have.

_Huh_, she thought, pouting a little in amusement. _He's twice her age. Dump me for a young, blonde bimbo, why don't you!_

The Admiral heard her in her dreams, and it took a tour down memory lane – another New Earth dream, though Kathryn learned her feelings for Chakoay had died a painful death upon hearing of his involvement with this "Seven". It had hurt her, when she'd found out. And for once, Kathryn felt a pang of sympathy for the Admiral, and decided to pay a visit.

"What are _you_ doing here?" to Kathryn's shock, the Admiral had become quite talented when it came to lucid dreams, and realised she was dreaming the moment her younger self had appeared.

Kathryn blinked at her. "Excuse me? I'm here to tell you to stop harassing my crew."

"I'm taking them _home_."

"And throwing multiple tantrums while you're at it," said Kathryn. "You've done nothing but make things miserable for Captain Chakotay and Commander Tuvok – "

"They haven't been obeying me!" the Admiral fumed. "They want to destroy the borg – "

"And I want to as well, even if it means taking longer to get home," Kathryn tilted her chin up. "What happened to me, that I became a selfish old biddy like you? What happened to serving the greater good?"

That caused the Admiral to blink at her.

"Chakotay has made this decision knowing I would have supported him," said Kathryn.

And then, sick of her, she faded from the old woman's dream and watched it turn back into her planting tomatoes as Chakotay watched with a smile.

--

Kathryn had expected the old woman to be so stubborn that a few fancy sentences wouldn't move her – but it did. It struck a chord, and when the Admiral woke up in the middle of the night, she moved to the deserted mess hall.

"Coffee," she said to the replicator. "Black."

It materialised. Sipping it, the Admiral moved to a chair, and sat down, looking out at the stars going by at warp speed. "I don't believe I ever gave this up," she murmured, glancing to her cup.

And then an idea struck her.

"Admiral to the Captain."

A groan told her that Chakotay had been asleep. "Yes?"

"Turn Voyager around," said the Admiral. "I have an idea."

--

It was genius, thought Kathryn, watching in pride as it unfolded. As the Borg came down with their own version of food poisoning (_"Must be something you assimilated_." Kathryn couldn't help but feel so _proud_ of her would-be future self), and Voyager raced through the transwarp corridor. She almost felt like the ship was alive, and thrilled and thrummed eagerly as she watched from the bridge. She was dying to flicker the lights in excitement, but couldn't afford to distract the crew now.

Explosions racked space. Voyager spilt from the transwarp corridor. Bewildered Admirals appeared on the screen, and Kathryn felt so happy – the crew _buzzed_ with energy as the Admirals came up on the viewscreen, with excitement, and from the corridors and stations of the ship echoed cheers of a magnitude of joy that Kathryn hadn't felt since the angel visited her. In her excitement, one of the consoles short-circuited, a light blew, and the others flickered wildly.

"Calm down, Captain, calm down!" laughed Harry Kim, then he himself punched the air, making the spectre give a silent laugh. "_YES!_"

The Admirals blinked at him from the screen, and Kim flushed. Tuvok looked at his dead console critically.

"It'll be in my report, Admiral," said Chakotay with a smile.

And so, Voyager went home.

--

They brought out the large ramp in the docking bay that the builders had used once upon a time, especially for a traditional exit. The crew assembled. Walked down. And Kathryn watched them from the ship, smiling, as they laughed and cried and flew into the arms of their long lost friends and families.

Chakotay glanced towards her. "I can feel you there, you know," he said.

_I'm proud of you_. Kathryn felt her father's ghostly hand touch her shoulder. She glanced up at him, both of them in their living forms, and smiled.

Chakotay walked down the ramp, and slowly, Kathryn followed. She saw the stars streaked across the sky above. Saw the sky, and the full moon again. She felt tears again, too.

_We're here. We're really here._

And she looked around one last time, as her father approached her, as the light that waited for them grew brighter. Saw Admiral Paris with his granddaughter. Saw Harry Kim with Libby. Saw B'Elanna with her father, clutching each other as if they'd never let go. Saw her mother, with her tear-streaked face, saw her sister Phoebe, talking to Chakotay.

Chakotay looked towards the ramp again. His eyes could not see her, but she knew he was looking for her. And, quietly, he gave a salute and a smile.

She smiled back, so gently. And at last she turned and took her father's hand.

And then she went home.


End file.
